Hyenas inspired me to be director

Not real ones, of course, but the humans playing Shenzi, Banzai and Ed – the trio of hunters in The Lion King.

Aged 15, Lotte talked her way into work experience at the stage musical version of Disney’s adventure in the West End.

“I watched a rehearsal the director was taking with the understudy hyenas. It was the first time I was more interested in what the director was doing than the actors,” said Lotte.

“Also seeing someone do it made me think it was a real job,” she said.

Until then she had determined to be an actress. “I fell in love with theatre at seven when I was taken to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

“I was blown away by it and I loved being part of a group of people all experiencing something at once,” she said.

Lotte studied English literature at Oxford University where she did both acting and directing.

“By the time I left I had decided to be a director,” she said.

She went in to study at the National Theatre Studio and has been a freelance director for 10 years.

She is associate director of Matilda for the RSC and was also the associate director on Broadway .

It was while she was directing The World Goes Round for the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough in 2016 that she first thought she would like to experience being a building-based director.

She returned to the town last year to direct Di and Viv and Rose and the germ of the idea became a reality.

Lotte applied for Arts Council funding and created a programme for a role as associate director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre being mentored by its resident artistic director Paul Robinson.

She and her partner, a sound designer, left their flat in London and rented one in Scarborough.

“The idea was to learn what it means to be an artistic director outside of the rehearsal room.

“I have worked with the OutReach and marketing teams and liaised with the finance department and learned about leading a team,” said Lotte. “Paul and the chief executive Stephen Freeman were keen that I got a no-holes barred experience, so I have been attending board meetings and looking at paper work.

“I have found everything fascinating because it is all for the service of the art,” she said. This includes setting up a creche for a performance of Chris York’s Build A Rocket – a play about teenage motherhood.

“If you had told me a year ago I would be organising a creche ... It wasn’t something I thought I would ever do but seeing how that had a big impact on the people who used it and how grateful they were for the opportunity is one of the things I’m most proud of.”